Town and Country

I called a realtor on Tuesday and she immediately put the kibosh on the boss' house. Apparently the foundation is absolutely horrible. In the abstract, I still like the idea of buying an old house and "saving" it, but I know that my Bob Vila gene is not developed enough to do that now. I'll have to wait until I need a retirement project.

We're going to look at three places on Saturday. This is the only one I've seen the exterior of. Wonderful location on a fairly quiet road with only two neighbors in sight. We'll have to test the air a bit to see if we mind that one of them is a farm that sells pigs. Although my foodie husband sees that as a plus since he'd like to try raising a pig. And the pictures on the site disguise the fact the the rear of one of the barns is pitched at a 30 degree angle and about to collapse.


This is a good time to discuss our Village/Country debate in more detail. Until Dan was eight he lived about a mile from the above house and has very fond memories of he and his friends roaming the fields and woods like extras in a Lil Rascals movie. Then they moved into the village where they shared the street with two sororities and had to deal with drunken frat kids making a ruckus on their way home from the bars. And once vomiting in Dan's unlocked car. WHY!!!!! But seen from the Mom's perspective, being in the village means not having to drive the kids home from after-school practice and being able to walk to the store/library/playground. So in addition to the above house, we're going to look at this ranch that's only a few blocks from the school.

At least it's got a great kitchen

This is the house that currently has our attention. An old Victorian on a large lot in Colton, NY. Colton is a very small village up the road. A few churches, general store, tavern, not much else. Except for a fantastic walking trail along the river and a state park with swimming and boating up the road a bit.

The house is currently vacant, so my Dad and I poked around it this morning. The interior looks fantastic, with a great kitchen and hardwood floors downstairs. But there were lots of issues with drainage around the foundation. I'm glad we went on a rainy, muddy day so that it caught our attention clearly. There's quite a lot of wood rot at the ground level. Who knows how bad it could look from the basement. Also a few issues with the standing seam roof that we'll have to make sure isn't leaking. And the deal breaker would be if the old wiring is still in place. The barn and the front porch have old knob and tube wiring. If that's in the rest of the house, we shouldn't buy it.

And the final complication is that the house is owned by Dan's boss. Which could be weird. But it also means that we have some insight into his psyche. We could probably get a better price if we went to him directly and cut out the realtors, but I really want a buffer between us to do the negotiations. If we do the negotiations. Because buying the first house we look at would probably not be a good idea. Although it does fit our usual way of doing things.

Another view circa 1903....

What's Plan B?

So, the restaurant isn't going to happen. The discussion at the meeting basically came down to "We think that your idea won't sell here, and we won't lease to you unless you change the menu to something more casual. Or you can come up with $300,000 to buy the building and you can do whatever you want." Drat. We're actually feeling pretty good about decision to walk away. Here's how we rationalize "feeling good"....

1. We never meant to do this so soon. When we moved from D.C., our five-year plan was to get decent jobs, buy a house, build equity and savings, and then try for a restaurant when the kids were older and both in school. We're going to go back to that plan, although we're a year behind now after the fire and after all the futzing around we've been doing working on Palmetto for the last four months.

2. When we got caught up in doing this, we thought that Ryan would be able to bring in a significant amount of cash. That never materialized. And as we began to look at how much debt we'd have to take on, it seemed less likely that the profits could handle the extra interest expense. And personally, I was NEVER happy that Dan decided to bring in someone else. Yes, we needed front of house experience, but I want the restaurant to be "our" restaurant, and having a partner was always going to rub me the wrong way.

3. A lot of people were doubting that our menu and prices would work in Canton. In contrast, we don't think that the alternative ideas will work in that building. It could be good to see what someone else does there. I don't really want the next occupant to fail, because I'd like a decent place to eat in town. But maybe in a few years they'll want to sell, and the town could be ready for our plans then.

We'll keep our eyes open for other opportunities. If we start with something smaller, it will be much easier to get it off the ground. This was an ambitious plan, and could have quite easily swamped us. It was a good experience, we learned a lot, we'll know where to start next time blah, blah, blah. I'm just kicking myself for quitting all my online classes. Whoops.

Now that I'm not spending hours each week fiddling with Business plans, I'm looking for a new job instead. My part-time gig is boring, boring, boring, boring. And pays crap. Hopefully something better will come along.

Where the heart is

Have you all been waiting for news about the restaurant? Cause I don't really want to talk about that right now. I don't know what we're doing yet, and can't decide which path will lead to happiness.

So instead, I'm looking at houses to buy. Which is kind of fun and mostly frustrating. I remember being sooooooo overwhelmed in D.C. when there were thousands of listings in our commuting area and hundreds in our price range. How could we possibly narrow it down? I still don't quite know how we ended up in Germantown. Although it was a pretty easy step to go from our apartment there to the townhouse, which was essentially across the street.

Now we have to think about school systems and winter driving conditions. I'd like to be in either the Canton (Dan's hometown) or Potsdam (where Dan works) school system because I'm more familiar with those villages. They also have a higher concentration of parents who are professionals because of the colleges, and higher family incomes. But it probably doesn't make that much of a difference in the great scheme of things if only 1/4 of the class is poor as opposed to 1/2. Although I think we'll try to stay away from the Neo-Nazis in Parishville.

We also have many debates about whether we want a country home or a village home. I'm pro-village, I want to walk to get milk and have the kids be able to get to school with a minimum of hassle. Dan wants the country to he can have a meat-smoker in the backyard and walk the dog without having to pick up poop. Not that we have a dog, but that's apparently the next step. A sampling of choices.....

1.
2.
3.

Frak

We're not really smiling anymore. I don't think this guy would be a good fit for us, which in itself isn't too bad. But, he's also been talking to SLU on his own, and could end up being involved whether we like it or not. He's considering buying the building. I think he'd only do that if he then wanted to work with us to run it, but I don't think he likes our restaurant style. The local Lobster House came up in conversation a lot. And the scarier part is that he was indicating that his opinion on our menu and restaurant concept might also be shared by the people making the final call at SLU. It's entirely plausible that they'll hook him up with another interested party and we'll be out for good. If we can only get in by agreeing to be a Ruby Tuesdays clone, then we'd rather be out.

Dan looked pretty grim before going to work. I hope he doesn't drive himself crazy over the next day.

La la la everything's going great la la di-da

Okay, where were we? T-bone's steakhouse was trying to steal our restaurant and we had no money to counter them with. And meanwhile, complete silence from SLU even though we knew they were having a trustee's meeting and we expected to hear from them within a few days of that.

Developments since then......
1. Various family members have confidence in us to the tune of $50,000. Yeehaw!!!

2. SLU called and wants to meet with us Thursday. No more details on why or what may happen at that date.

3. A local man, who made a bundle working private security in Iraq, has returned home. His family owned a popular restaurant that had been closed for years, and was in fact just torn down. He's friends with the County Chamber of Commerce Pres, she's friends with Ryan. We're having lunch with him tomorrow to see if he wants to be involved somehow.

4. As a bonus, the bank manager did not laugh me out of his office when I approached him with our business plan and total lack of collateral. I'm sure that the $50,000 (plus?) will help grease the wheels there if I go back later this week.

Dan is smiling. I would be smiling, if I didn't have a persistent cough, runny nose, headache and ear infection. C'est la vie.

Boule de Jeu!!!

Joined another Fantasy Baseball league this year. Instead of joining Yahoo Public #985763 I found a league named FNBA, Food Network Baseball Association. Team names include
The Spam Kings
Waffle House Junkies
Duck Lorange
and Palmetto Po-Boys (guess who that is?)

And here is a sampling of recent messages.
"Je serai a Paris des vacances. I'll be back before the season starts, though. I'm looking forward to baseball!"
"Enjoy Paris! Mangez un bon nombre de bonne nourriture."

Boule de Jeu!!! Play Ball!

Crap

Things with the restaurant have been at a standstill this week. We were hoping to hear from SLU after last weekend's trustee meeting, but no word yet on if they will give us the lease. I called an insurance broker about some questions, and he let me know that there was an article in the paper about the building today. Some choice excerpts.

"There are two proposals that are being evaluated," said Kathryn L. Mullaney, SLU vice president for business and finance. "No decisions have been made."

Mrs. Mullaney wouldn't identify the potential tenants, but one is Thomas M. and Tracy Williams, the owners of Amigo's, a Tex/Mex restaurant in Massena's Harte Haven Plaza

"We have given St. Lawrence all the numbers and menus and are waiting for them," he said. "We've come up with a name, T-Bone Steakhouse and Sports Pub."

Should I laugh or cry? Looks like it's money vs. style, we'll see who wins.